I Am Singaporean.

(The meme that started “here”:http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2006/07/browncast_i_am_.html and is tagged on Technorati as “iamsingaporean”:http://technorati.com/search/iamsingaporean)

I am Singaporean because _nabei_ and in the name of _nonok_ I curse and swear like one. Because of racial integration policies at the grassroots level I know the names of female and male genitalia in all the official languages, and then some dialects too.

When I fall asleep on the bus I know when to wake up for my stop, the moment the bus meanders round the highway near the flats I have stayed in since I was born. Even with my iPod plugged firmly into my ears I know the order of MRT stations on most lines: Jurong Clementi Dover Buona Vista.

I find myself asleep on an Indian train, and in that teeming humanity of summer in the hottest bits of Uttar Pradesh, all I can think of is… _I want to eat creamy butter crabs from Ang Mo Kio_. And I make a $5 ISD call home to tell my mother to book us a table at the _kopitiam_ for the day I come home (the next month).

I struggle to find the right clothes to wear: if they are too thin, I freeze in my classrooms, my buses, trains and shopping malls. A little thicker, and the oppressive humidity is too much to handle, even though I have lived in it all my life. For this reason I take to cold and heat equally.

I stopped singing the national anthem and raising my hands to the pledge when I was 13. I am Singaporean, so my Singaporean-ness refuses to let me lie without shame. I have never felt as much for this country, to be honest, as I have when I used to go to the Malaysia Cup finals, as a kid, at the National Stadium, wearing a Singapore Die Hard Fan jersey which was a few sizes too big for me. Abbas Saad would score and nobody cared that he wasn’t Singaporean, only that we were going to win.

I am Singaporean because I carry toilet paper with me everywhere, especially to Malaysia and to India. I still cannot bring myself to litter even though I know these governments don’t give a damn.

When the cashier at Watson’s says buy 10 get 1 free, I actually have to pause to think: what are the additional 8 items I could buy?

I live in a 5 room HDB flat in an estate 5 minutes from where both my parents work, went to two mission schools and one posh girls’ school, speak two official languages and several dialects, have PSLE, O Levels, A Levels, no NS, have 20% of all the money I’ve ever earned put away involuntarily until I’m 55, and constantly think about what will happen when I graduate and join the workforce. Even though what I’m thinking about my career prospects is possibly a little different from most.

I run away from this country so frequently because it costs as much for me to _exist_ here, as it does for me to fly to, sleep, eat, and do exactly the same things I do, in a foreign land. This is not very different from my neighbours driving in to Malaysia to save a few pennies here and there, and to eat a feast.

I used to write about politics on the Internet but not anymore.

I speak English, dream in English, write in English, but wake up in the morning either mumbling _5 more minutes_ in my mother tongue (Diojiu), or telling my lover the time in her own language without realizing I could speak it.

I am Singaporean because like Xiao Li in all our primary school textbooks, my friends are people like Gopal, Fatimah and David. I have had precisely one great love from each of the main races, except my own.

I shout in coffeeshops for my drinks — _teh O peng jit puay_, have _bak chor mee keh hiam_ for breakfast, _nasi, ayam, sambal goreng and veggie don’t want tau geh_ for lunch and snack on _aloo chaat_ with _masala tea_ or _lassi_ all day. One of my best friends helpfully suggests that I name my son “Sanjay Tan Chun Xiong”:http://ballsy.wordpress.com/2006/07/06/all-i-needed-to-know-i-learnt-at-an-all-girls-party/, and it isn’t as far-fetched as she intended it to be.

I am Singaporean. I think. We are a country of immigrants and I may just become one myself.

possibly related